There’s no language for this, no frame of reference, only raw, unrelenting agony tearing through whatever I was and forcing something else into place, reshaping me whether I survive it or not.
I can’t tell whether I am in this hell for mere seconds or what feels like a lifetime.
Time has no meaning here.
And then, without warning, consciousness slams into me.
My eyes snap open.
The realization doesn’t land immediately. Panic does. Raw and instinctive, surging through me as my body refuses thecommand to inhale. Air doesn’t rush in, my lungs don’t burn. There’s no desperate gasp to ground me back in myself.
Nothing happens.
My chest doesn’t rise. My throat doesn’t pull in oxygen. The pain recedes just enough for awareness to flood in, and that’s when the terror truly takes hold.
I’m awake.
I’m aware.
And I’m not fucking breathing.
I try to inhale.
My body ignores the command.
I clamp a hand to my chest, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt, waiting for something— pressure, burn, the frantic thud of a heartbeat kicking into gear.
There’s nothing.
Only silence beneath my ribs, a hollow stillness where motion should be.
The realization lands slow and sickening.
Sound crashes in next, overwhelming and merciless. Too much of it. Too close. Every noise sharpens into something separate and distinct—the hum of electricity in the walls, fabric shifting somewhere nearby, distant heartbeats pulsing through the building, loud and intrusive, a chaotic chorus I can’t shut out. I squeeze my eyes closed, but it doesn’t help. Darkness doesn’t mute anything, it only makes it worse.
My skin crawls.
I feeleverything,the grain of wood beneath my palms, the cool weight of the air against my skin, the vibration of footsteps far away and yet impossibly clear. Emotion slams into me just as violently. Fear spikes, sharp, and confusion follows, then something darker threads through it all.
Hunger.
But not hunger the way I understand it.
Not an empty stomach.
Not weakness or nausea.
This is a deep, gnawing pull that coils somewhere beneath my ribs and spreads outward, sharp and insistent, as if something inside me has woken up and is demanding to be fed. My mouth floods with saliva, my throat tightening painfully, as if it remembers something my mind refuses to name.
I don’t know what I want.
I just know Ineedit.
My limbs feel different when I move, heavy and light at the same time. Weak in a way that makes my joints ache, but beneath that weakness, there’s strength.Too much of it.I push myself upright and overshoot, my hand slamming into the surface beside me hard enough to splinter wood.
I freeze, staring at the damage.
That shouldn’t have happened.
